MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said it had agreed to sell its RLAM refinery to Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Capital for USD1.65 billion, subject to regulatory approval, reported Reuters.
Petrobras, as the company is known, also said it would not sell its REPAR refinery, in the southern state of Parana, at the current time as it considered the bids too low. It did not elaborate further but said, without giving a timeline, that it will begin a new sales process for REPAR.
Reuters reported earlier that both Ultrapar Participacoes SA and Raizen, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Brazilian ethanol producer Cosan SA, had bid for REPAR.
According to antitrust rules, as Petrobras picked Ultrapar to lead negotiations for the sale of its REFAP refinery in Rio Grande do Sul state, in the same region as REPAR, its only option would be to sell REPAR to another competitor, in this case Raizen.
Petrobras said the process to divest REFAP, as well as five other refineries, namely RMAN, RNEST, REGAP, LUBNOR and SIX, was ongoing.
As MRC informed before, Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras is seeking 800 million reais (USD152 million) in compensation from engineering group Odebrecht in arbitration proceedings over its alleged violation of the shareholders agreement in petrochemical company Braskem.
We remind that Petrobras may need more than a year to divest its stake in Braskem, said Andrea Almeida, Petrobras CFO, in early July, 2020. She said during the company's recent webinar that Petrobras plans to give more time for potential investors to make offers for the company"s assets, including for its refineries and stakes at its petrochemical and fuel distribution affiliates. The divestment of Petrobras's stake in Braskem in 2020 would be desirable but "might not be possible" as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed market conditions, she said. The company plans to close part of its refinery sales in 2021. In December, Roberto Castello Branco, CEO of Petrobras, said that he wants to sell the company's stake in Braskem within a year. Petrobras owns 32.15% of Braskem.
We also remind that Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem's back burner for several years.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, excluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras" activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
MRC